This is the story of Morris Abraham Cohen, Chinese War Lord and diplomatist, merchant and financier, reformer and idealist, who started life in poverty in the East End of London less than 40 years ago, the “Daily Mail” of yesterday wrote.
His astonishing career, it said, was revealed to a “Daily Mail” reporter yesterday by his brother, a Manchester merchant. Cohen is the financial and diplomatic force behind modern China-his parents believe he is the real president of the country-and he holds the rank of genoral in the Chinese 19th. Army, which is now engaged on the Shanghai front. He frequently corresponds with his parents in Manchester, and tells them that he has a fervent hope that one day he may be instrumental in creating a united China under conditions of government similar to those of the Western Emoires.
He started with no material advantage in life, his only assets being an incurable disposition for roving and a far-seeing appreciation of Orientals and sympathy for them. We know many of these in the East End of London, and when in his Canadian travels he reached Alberta and settled in Edmonton as a real-estate dealer he become a friend of the Chinese settlers. In acting as counsollor and friend to those who found themselves in difficulties he came to know them and understand their ways. On the outbreak of the Great War Cohen is said to have mobilised a Chinese labour battalion which saw service in France. He came in contact with Chinese officials who, at the close of the war, made him a member of a powerful and secret Chinese political organisation. Cohen went to China and, by his financial and organising ability, became a powerful factor in the rise of the Chinese Nationalist Party.
He assisted in one of the escapes from China of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, and, from being “back-stage” assistant to the Chinese Nationalist leader he actually took on much of his political work. No Cohen’s commands are obeyed to the letter in the Chinese Nationalist movement. As an Ambassador of trade between China and the West he is credited with having brought valuable orders to Great Pritain. He was confidential adviser to San Fou, Sun Yat-Sen’s son, who conducted the Chinese economic mission to Britain in 1928.
His parents live in Bury New-Road, Manchester.
When Morris Abraham Cohen, the London-born Jew, who has become a power behind the scenes of Nationalist Chins, has completed his work he means to return to the land of his birth, the “Sunday Dispatch” writes to-day.
His parents, who live in Bury-New-Road, Manchester, state that this is his ambition.
Because he is an Englishman and a Jew, it adds, Mr. John cannot take the title of China’s Nationalist Chief, and he declares that when he knows that China is on the way to safe recovery from internal strife he will retire and devote himself to Forgin the strong bones of friendship between the Orient and the British Empire.
The “Empire News” also takes up the story to-day, declaring that the career of Moisha (Morris) Cohen, known to the Chinese as Cohen Moisha, reminds one instanely of the record of “Lawrence of Arabia”, whilst the mystery which has always surrounded his work and movements is as great as that in which Sir B#sil#aharoff is enveloped. If ever he acts upon his present in cention to prepare and publish his memoirs, it says, the would will have the opportunity of reading the record of a life that can only be described as amazing.
From quite humble beginnings, the paper continues, Morris Cohen rose to be the right-hand man of President Sun Yat Sen, to become, so long ago as 1911, one of the great men behind the Chinese Nationalist movement; organiser of its fighting forces; and to be known as “the Unerowned King” of the country.
At one time he held in China a position equivalent to that of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and more than once he has been officially reported dead in order to mislead enemies who sought his life.
When the Great War broke out he raised a Chinese Labour Corps, which he offered to the British Army. Its services were declined, so he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a private, and saw a great deal of service with them in France. He was mentioned in dispatches and was offered a commission, which he refused. Once, whilst under heavy fire, he carried a wounded officer on his shoulders for more than six hundred yards, and declined the decoration which the authorities wished to confer upon him. He eventually accepted “stripes”, and became a sergeant.
He has always been bitterly antagonistic to Communism, the “Empire News” declares, and his hatred of the Reds and their methods of terrorism was intensified by the outrages committed at Hankow, a few years ago by the Russians gathered around Jacob Borodin. Great Britain, it concludes, has in Moisha Cohen a devoted friend who does infinitely more for her than most of her population realise, for, indeed, to very few of them is he even a name. His service with the Chinese Army will probably terminate when the present struggle ends.
Mr. S. Jacobi, who has travelled extensively in the Far East, conducting campaigns on behalf of the O.R.T. -Oze- Emigdirekt, tells the J.T.A. that he has obtained considerable support in his campaigns from General Cohen, who takes an active part in Jewish communal affairs, and is a member of the B’nai B’rith.
Mr. Jacobi says that Cohen is a General in the Chinese Army, but he is not the virtual chief of the Nationalist forces nor an uncrowned king or President, as he is represented to be in some reports.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
